Oil-Tank Glow

Synfuel project sabotaged

It was the most destructive and audacious act of sabotage in South Africa's history. In a series of coordinated nighttime raids against petroleum complexes in the small oil towns of Sasolburg and Secunda, black nationalist guerrillas cut their way through chain-link fences surrounding two adjoining refineries in Sasolburg and then planted several limpet mines with expert precision. The explosions destroyed a total of eight fuel storage tanks and set off towering fires that raged for nearly two days. A third installation at Secunda, 90 miles east of Johannesburg, was rocked by seven bomb blasts but suffered only limited damage.

The plants, owned by the South African Coal, Oil & Gas Corp. (SASOL), are part of an ambitious project that aims to make South Africa almost totally self-sufficient in gasoline before the turn of the century by turning coal into liquid fuel. While similar synthetic fuels helped run Hitler's armies during World War II, the procedure has not been widely used because, until recently, petroleum was much cheaper. The South Africans have developed the most advanced facilities in the world for making synthetic fuels. Under the Carter national energy program now being completed in Congress, the U.S. would build ten similar plants at a cost of $20 billion by 1984.

Though plant officials claimed that production was not interrupted, they admitted that the bombs had caused $7.2 million in damages. But the raids raised new questions about the vulnerability to terrorist attacks of South Africa's industrial complex. Warned Lukas Daniel Barnard, chief of the Department of National Security: "We must not delude ourselves that these are sporadic incidents. They are part of a broad strategy."

Responsibility for the bombings was claimed in London by the newly reorganized military wing of the African National Congress (A.N.C.), a radical nationalist group that was banned in 1960. After years of sporadic hit-and-run attacks, A.N.C. guerrillas have stepped up their activity in recent months. Last week's strike demonstrated a new level of proficiency in their determined struggle to free the country's 20 million blacks from the domination of 4 million whites.

The government of Prime Minister P.W. Botha was careful to keep its reaction subdued and controlled. Only after the A.N.C. had claimed responsibility for the acts did the government name two of the group's nonblack expatriate leaders as the raid's presumed masterminds. They were Joe Slovo, a white Communist exile now residing in Mozambique, and Frene Ginwala, a radical woman lawyer believed to be living underground within southern Africa.

The SASOL bombings seemed to lend considerable substance to Botha's recent warnings that a "total onslaught" is being prepared against white rule. To counter the rising militancy, the government this month has presented Parliament with a constitutional reform bill that would give a minor consultative role to non-whites but not to African blacks. Botha's limited racial reforms, however, fall tragically short of even moderate black requests for parliamentary representation and an end to racial discrimination. Nationalist guerrillas have now shown that they are ready to go after South Africa's industry to back up their demands.

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